Yesterday on NPR Neal Conan of “Talk of the Nation” gave an unfettered 16+ minute platform to Matthew Franck, director of the William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution at the Witherspoon Institute who in a anti-gay propaganda piece for The Washington Post Sunday which we posted about here defending anti-gay hate groups that “the charge of ‘hate’ is not a contribution to argument; it’s the recourse of people who would rather not have an argument at all.”

NPR and Neal Conan allowed Franck to play the victim card freely for these hate groups and didn’t bother to challenge he accuracy of any of Franck’s or do any research into Franck or the William E. and Carol G. Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution at the Witherspoon Institute.

If they did this is what NPR would have found out about the Witherspoon Institute

The Witherspoon Institute is a Christian Right propaganda group with ties to Opus Dei and the Family Research Council — the latter of which is one of the aforementioned hate groups. Surprise, surprise.

Luis E. Tellez, the President of Witherspoon Institute, is an Opus Dei cleric. Robert P. George, Senior Fellow of WI and a member of its Academic Committee, serves on the board of FRC. The Witherspoon Institute is thick as thieves with the FRC.

It amazes me that NPR gave Franck an open platform for his pitiful exercise in propaganda, which was to discredit the Southern Poverty Law Center. Franck conveniently omits to mention the real reason those groups are listed as hate groups: “… based on their propagation of known falsehoods — claims about LGBT people that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities — and repeated, groundless name-calling.” and has nothing to do with opposition to same-sex marriage.”

NPR and the Media in general seems to easily fall for the tactic that hate groups like FRC and AFA use of having multiple umbrella groups that seemingly are not connected but in reality are like one big hateful incestuous family. And not only did NPR let Franck and his groups credentials go unchecked they gave him an open platform with the host so uninformed and no counterpoint to challenge the accuracy of many of Franck’s statements which were blatant lies. Not only is it extremely poor media journalism. Its dangerous.

I ask the NPR, Talk of the Nation and any other media outlets interested to give me equal time to rebut Francks lies and also to expose the The Witherspoon Institute and other organizations who work under and with these anti-gay hate groups to spread propaganda and dehumanize and harm the LGBT Community.

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Will Kohler is a noted LGBT historian, writer, blogger and owner of Back2Stonewall.com. A longtime gay activist, Will fought on the front lines of the AIDS epidemic with ACT-UP and continues fighting today for LGBT acceptance and full equality. Will’s work has been referenced in notable media venues as MSNBC and BBC News, The Washington Post, The Advocate, The Daily Beast, Hollywood Reporter, Raw Story, and The Huffington Post